SCIENTISTS have revealed the Spanish coastline could be put at serious risk by rising sea levels and increasingly severe storms.

Experts said the Catalonia region, a favourite of holidaymakers with over 2.5million people believed to have visited Barcelona alone last year, and its ports are at risk.

The study by scientists from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia found that almost half of the province’s ports could be under threat from rises in sea level.

They found that the number of ports at risk from the ever increasing ocean grow by "from three to eight for frequent storms, five to 11 for severe storms and 10 to 20 if storms are exceptionally strong”.

Catalonia includes some of Europe’s largest ports – including Tarragona and the Port of Barcelona which is the continent’s ninth largest container port, trading in 2.57million shipping containers in 2008.

“The second value for the same year is 88 cm (considered the worst-case scenario by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)

“Finally, we considered an extreme scenario with a 180 cm rise in sea level. Although there is a low probability that this will come about it cannot be ruled out, especially if there is an acceleration in the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice”.

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Water flowing over ports could sink both tourism and trade for the region

Researchers have warned that action will be needed to battle the rising sea before 2100, when their study predicts serious damage for the region’s vital ports and the next generation of Catalonians.

It comes after the countries which could face extinction as they slowly sink under water were revealed by worried world leaders.

Small island Pacific States made their case at the General Assembly of the United Nations earlier this month as they struggle to see a future past the rising incoming tide.

Peter Christian, President of the Federated States of Micronesia, said: “Twenty-five years ago, the small island developing States cried out for action against human-induced climate change, stressing that we literally face extinction as nations and as oceanic cultures due to surging sea level rise and related consequences.

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Barcelona is a beloved tourist destination for cruising brits

“We stand today, at last, many nations united to confront this dark, glaring reality.”